While all bone fractures may be serious injuries requiring precise treatment for healing, wrist fractures seem to require extra care; proper alignment and fixation of bone fragments is critical for effective healing of the wrist joint. This point may be illustrated by considering a typical wrist fracture from a fall. Generally a wrist fracture occurs when compression forces on the distal radius cause a break in the bone, with the distal fragment becoming displaced dorsally. Such a fracture often results in multiple bone fragments, each free floating and improperly aligned with respect to the other fragments. Without effective treatment (aligning and fixing the position of the fragments), the bone fragments from the fracture would knit together improperly during the healing process, resulting in possible deformity, loss of range of motion, and/or long-term discomfort. Thus, it is important to properly align the fracture fragments and to fix the bones in place relative to one another so that proper healing may occur.
Conventional methods for treating wrist fractures include casting, external fixation, interosseous wiring, and plating. Each of these techniques have their limitations, however. Casting is a fairly simple, non-invasive external fixation technique, but because it does not provide the precision associated with internal alignment and fixation of individual bone fragments, it is generally too crude to effectively treat complex wrist fractures when used alone. External fixators try to mold fracture fragments into alignment using tension applied across a fracture by the surrounding soft tissue. For wrist fractures with multiple bone fragments, however, external fixators may be unable to effectively position all of the fragments. Interosseous wiring, on the other hand, places a screw into each bone fragment and then uses wiring to brace the fragments in place. While this technique may be effective, it is both difficult and time-consuming to perform. It requires a great deal of skill and precision on the part of the surgeon, since only a complex wire bracing system specifically created for a particular patient's injury can properly stabilize multiple bone fragments.
Plating systems have also been utilized to attempt to stabilize the bone fragments associated with wrist fractures. Conventionally, a metal plate would be mounted to the fractured bones using a set of pins. While this sort of surgical plate system seems to offer advantages over other conventional techniques, it has been in its infancy to date and requires further refinement to provide effective alignment and stabilization of wrist fractures. Accordingly, disclosed embodiments relate to improved volar plate devices that provide a stabilizing framework allowing for proper alignment and fixation of bone fragments during the healing process. Disclosed embodiments take advantage of detailed anatomical analysis of the distal volar radius region, providing an internal fixation device that complements the bones' innate design to effectively align and support the fracture site.